The Mental Landscape of Imagining Life Beyond the Current Life Span: Implications for Construal and Self-Continuity

Age Differences in Self-Continuity in Germany and the United States: The Role of Temporal Direction, Temporal Distance, and Demographics

OBJECTIVES

Previous research suggests that self-continuity is higher in older ages, especially for more distant intervals. This study extends prior work by examining age and temporal patterns of self-continuity in 2 adult life-span samples from Germany and the United States.

METHODS

German data (n = 1,656, aged 18-93) were drawn from the German Socioeconomic Panel. U.S. data (n = 230, aged 18-87) were collected through a survey research firm. Preregistered multilevel analyses examined the roles of age, temporal direction (past/future), and temporal distance (1/5/10 years), and explored the role of demographic covariates.

RESULTS

In both data sets, self-continuity was higher in older ages and decreased with distance from the present, especially for the past. Interaction effects among age, temporal distance, and temporal directions were complex and varied across samples. Self-continuity was higher among married and more educated German participants and more affluent U.S. participants, but age differences remained robust when including demographic covariates.

DISCUSSION

Findings replicate prior evidence for age-related increments in self-continuity but suggest that patterns vary by temporal distance and direction and may be sensitive to contextual factors.

Aging affects cognition and hippocampal ultrastructure in male Wistar rats

It is now well established that aging is associated with emotional and cognitive changes. Although the basis of such changes is not fully understood, ultrastructural alterations in key brain areas are likely contributing factors. Recently, we reported that aging-related anxiety in male Wistar rats is associated with ultrastructural changes in the central nucleus of amygdala, an area that plays important role in emotional regulation. In this study, we evaluated the cognitive performance of adolescent, adult, and aged male Wistar rats in multi-branch maze (MBM) as well as in Morris water maze (MWM). We also performed ultrastructural analysis of the CA1 region of the hippocampus, an area intimately involved in cognitive function. The behavioral data indicate significant impairments in few indices of cognitive functions in both tests in aged rats compared to the other two age groups. Concomitantly, a total number of presynaptic vesicles as well as vesicles in the resting pool were significantly lower, whereas postsynaptic mitochondrial area was significantly higher in aged rats compared to the other age groups. No significant differences in presynaptic terminal area or postsynaptic mitochondrial number were detected between the three age groups. These results indicate that selective ultrastructural changes in specific hippocampal region may accompany cognitive decline in aging rats.

Will Life Extension Affect Our Social Judgments? Evidence That the Possibility of Indefinite Life Extension Increases Harshness Toward Social Transgressors

We tested the hypothesis that if indefinite life extension (ILE) through medical technologies were to become a reality, then people may become harsher in their judgment of social transgressors. In support of this hypothesis, we found that higher positive attitudes towards ILE technologies related to harshness in judgment of social transgressions (Study 1), and that making ILE plausible (compared to not plausible) led participants to endorse harsher punishments for social transgressors (Studies 2-3). We replicated this effect and found that it is not amplified by subliminal death primes, although the primes also increased harshness (Study 3). These results may have implications to understanding how social judgment may be affected by the prospect of ILE.